(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Kimball Cariou

     Even before the full impact of revelations about the treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan hits home, recent polls showed that a majority of Canadians want to end our military role in that country. The Tories and the corporate media (including the CBC, with its massive coverage of the visit by retired NHL players and the Stanley Cup to Kandahar) are going all-out to support the war effort. But anti-war sentiments have crystallized as the majority view, and further Canadian casualties seem likely to strengthen that position.

     A Strategic Counsel poll taken in April asked, "How long should Canadian troops  stay in Afghanistan?". The largest number of respondents (46%) said "return as soon as possible; stay until original commitment in 2007 - 18%; stay until our new commitment in 2009 - 8%; stay as long as it takes to rebuild and stabilize the country - 5%; don't know/no answer/ refuse - 5%. The same survey found that 57% of respondents believe that Canadians oppose sending troops to Afghanistan, while just 36% think that Canadians support sending troops.

     Also in April, Angus Reid Strategies asked about this statement: "Canada should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan before their mandate ends in February 2009." 52% of respondents agreed, 34% disagreed, and 14% were not sure.

     One of the most recent polls, conducted by SES Research in early May, found that 54.6% of respondents agreed that "If the casualties continue, Canada should pull out of Afghanistan."

     SES also asked people to rate the Harper government on this issue. 18.4% of those surveyed agreed with the Conservative government's management of the mission, and another 25.5% "somewhat agreed," for a total of 43.9%. That was less than those who "disagreed" (34.0%), and another 14.3% who "somewhat disagreed," for a total of 48.3%. Another 7.8% were "not sure."

     Most of these surveys came before a story by Paul Koring in the April 25 Globe and Mail revealed in late April that "the Harper government knew from its own officials that prisoners held by Afghan security forces faced the possibility of torture, abuse and extrajudicial killing... But the government has eradicated every single reference to torture and abuse in prison from a heavily blacked-out version of a report prepared by Canadian diplomats in Kabul and released under an access to information request."

     The government denied the existence of the report until complaints to the Access to Information Commissioner forced it to release a heavily edited version. An unedited copy obtained by the Globe and Mail states that "Extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common."

     The Foreign Affairs report ("Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights") "seems to remove any last vestige of doubt that the senior officials and ministers knew that torture and abuse were rife in Afghan jails," Koring wrote.

     The findings are similar to reports by Louise Arbour, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, the U.S. State Department, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and various international human-rights groups. But the information had a huge impact in Parliament, where the Harper government veered wildly between claims that it was not aware of the fate of detainees, to the attitude that such detainees were guilty and deserved to face torture and death.

     Most seriously for the government, the information makes it clear that Canada has refused to adhere to the Geneva Conventions rules for safeguarding transferred detainees from torture and abuse. The report, said Koring, "makes repeated dark references to the reputation and performance of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, or intelligence police," which receives most prisoners captured by Canadian troops.

     With the blood of Afghan detainees on its hands, it will now become even more difficult for the federal government to pose as the "defender of human rights" in Afghanistan.

     That problem will become even more critical for supporters of the war if the full truth about the situation of women in Afghanistan becomes more widely known.

     In an April 10 speech in Los Angeles, courageous female Afghan MP Malalai Joya told listeners that "The US government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its friends from among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the `Northern Alliance', which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban....

     "Today the Northern alliance leaders are the key power holders and our people are hostage in the hands of these ruthless gangs of killers. Many of them are responsible for butchering tens of thousands of innocent people in the past two decades but are in power and hold key positions in the government."

     Joya listed a few of the key power-holders of Afghanistan, including Vice-President Karim Khalili, leader of the Wahdat pro-Iran party, responsible for killing thousands of innocent people, and named by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal; minister of water and power Ismael Khan, another killer warlord; Izzatullah Wasifi, Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief, a convicted drug trafficker who served time in a Nevada state prison; General Mohammed Daoud, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister in charge of the anti-drug effort, a former warlord and famous drug-trafficker; Rashid Dostum, the chief of staff of the Afghan army, named by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal; Qasim Fahim, a Senator and adviser to Hamid Karzai, and the most powerful warlord of the Northern Alliance.

     "Afghans are deeply fed-up with the current situation and every day that passes they turn against the government, the foreign troops and the warlords," said Joya. "And the Taliban make use of it to increase their influence and acts of terror...

     "Seven hundred children and 50-70 women die on a daily basis because of a lack of health services. Infant and maternal mortality rates are still very high - 1,600 to 1,900 women among each 100,000 die during childbirth. Life expectancy is less than 45 years.

     "The number of suicide cases by Afghan women was never as high as it is today: A month ago eighteen year old Samiya, hung herself by a rope because she was to be sold to a sixty year old man. Another woman called Bibi Gul locked herself up in the animals' stable and burned herself to death. Later her family found nothing except her bones...

     "According to a UNIFEM survey, 65% of the 50,000 widows in Kabul see suicide as the only option to get rid of their misery. UNIFEM estimates that at least one out of three Afghan women has been beaten, forced into sex or otherwise abused..."

     Such informaation helps increasing numbers of Canadians to understand that the news from the dirty war in Afghanistan is not going to get better. Just as the U.S. role in the destruction of Iraq has dragged George W. Bush to the depths of public opinion polls, Afghanistan may well become the death knell of the Harper minority government.

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Baird's "Green Plan" gets thumbs down

(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

PV Vancouver Bureau

The federal government's so-called "Green Plan" has met with angry opposition from scientists and environmental organizations. Released on April 26, the strategy relies on "intensity targets" that allow actual emissions to rise for several years. According to the plan, Canada won't meet its Kyoto targets until 2025, not the original 2012 date.

     The plan is "a national embarrassment," according to Dr. David Suzuki. "Calling this plan a strategy is actually giving it far too much credit," said Suzuki the next day. "It's a sham, and a complete abdication of our international commitment."

     According to recent polls, the majority of Canadians still support the Kyoto Protocol and do not believe that meeting its targets would put an undue burden on the economy. Suzuki recently completed a 40?city tour that generated more than 30,000 votes in favour of Kyoto.

     "By abandoning Kyoto, Prime Minister Harper is dragging Canada's name through the mud," Suzuki said. "He's thumbing his nose at all the countries that are well on their way to meeting their targets and at the majority of Canadians who want to do the right thing."

     Suzuki calls for support of Bill C-30, the original Clean Air Act initiated by the Conservatives. After going through an extensive multi-party revision, C-30 is now considered a much more comprehensive and robust plan to fight the growing threat of global warming.

     The Polaris Institute warns that Baird's proposals for "intensity based targets" to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are "flawed and full of loopholes." As the Institute's Tony Clarke stresses, "intensity targets" will only set GHG limits per barrel of oil, and will not account for the enormous expansion in the Alberta tar sands industry.

     The sands produce over a million barrels of dirty crude oil every day, most of which is exported directly to the United States. To produce this crude oil, gigantic equipment is used to strip away trees, muskeg and top layers of earth followed by deep open pit mining and sub-surface in-situ steam methods to get the bitumen ["black gloo"] which is then melted in order to extract the oil. The process requires the burning of relatively clean natural gas, emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

     Clarke says that the Alberta tar sands industry is "well on its way to becoming Canada's number one industrial emitter of greenhouse gases." Currently, annual emissions from tar sands production amount to 27 million tonnes. By 2015, to meet rapidly rising U.S. demands, crude oil production from the tar sands is expected to multiply four to five times. Forecasts predict that GHG emissions from the tar sands will rise to 126 million tonnes by 2015.

     "These emission rates are not only environmentally unsustainable but they could pave the way for an ecological nightmare," says Clarke. "And, John Baird's `intensity targets' will do little to alter this picture. Moreover, new tar sands industry operations, which will be mainly responsible for the four to five-fold increase in production expected, will get a three year exemption from Baird's emission targets... Canada is already considered to be the world's leading greenhouse gas emitter on a per capita basis. With the production plans for the Alberta tar sands, Canada's reputation will only get worse."

     The Institute has posted a letter on its website www.tarsandswatch.org calling on the minister to advance "a new, more comprehensive, industry-wide plan with absolute targets for an effective reduction of greenhouse gases."

     Condemnation of the Conservative policy is international in scope. Former US vice-president Al Gore called the Harper plan "a complete and total fraud... designed to mislead the Canadian people". Recently, Canada received the international "Fossil Award" for misleading countries and quietly undermining global efforts at the climate negotiations in Kenya (see http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39038/story.htm).

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Message from the Communist Party of Canada, May 1, 2007

When the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made their second report earlier this year in Paris, they laid out the stark realities of the destruction already wrought on our environment as a result of ever-increasing hydrocarbon emissions. Submersion of coastal cities and towns, flooding, protracted droughts, accelerated extinction of species, agricultural production crises, massive poverty and spread of disease, etc. - these are only some of the devastating consequences climate change will bring throughout the world, and especially in the poorest and least-developed countries, and amongst the poorest and most marginalized peoples.

     In essence, the IPCC made clear what many millions have understood for decades: that this "way of life" - this system or mode of production and the social relations upon which it is based - is simply not sustainable. Either humanity finds a fundamentally new alternative to the prevailing capitalist system and its rapacious drive to plunder our planet in search of ever more profit and wealth, or else the very survival of the human species itself will be jeopardized.

     Fifteen years ago Cuban President Fidel Castro, speaking in Rio de Janeiro at the UN Summit on the Environment and Development, amended Rosa Luxembourg's famous dictum when he said that in today's world, the choice is between socialism and extinction.

     Fortunately, more and more working people around the world are moving into action to build precisely such a viable alternative to global capitalism, militarism and war. It is taking shape most clearly in Latin America in the growth of the left and anti-imperialist movements across the continent. Led by the heroic example of socialist Cuba, and now joined by Venezuela, Bolivia and other progressive forces and states, the people of this hemisphere are screaming out: "There is a choice; there is an alternative!", and they are opting for it in their millions.

     Sometime over the next year, and perhaps as early as this spring, Canadians will be called back to the polls in another federal election. And here too, the choice facing working people could not be any clearer.

     Since January 2006, Harper's Conservatives have been on a virtual tear. They have doubled the military budget, while slicing environmental and social equality programs. With the support of some 30 Liberal MPs, they managed to extend the military mission in Afghanistan until 2009, and plan to extend this unjustified and futile occupation even further. They have abandoned Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, dumped the National Childcare Program, and cancelled the Aboriginal Accord signed in Kelowna. Even more ominously, they have been quietly but systematically appointing right-wing neo-cons into the Senate, throughout government ministries, and onto Canada's courts.

     That the Tories have been able to introduce as much of their political agenda as they have, despite their minority status in Parliament, is a testament to the feebleness and lack of resolve of the "opposition" parties, and the fact that many - especially on the Liberal benches - quietly agree with the right-wing, pro-militarist policies coming from the government side of the House.

     But make no mistake - the Tories are the most dangerous force on the federal scene today, representing the most aggressive sections of Canadian big business, the transnationals and the banks - corporate interests which want to fundamentally transform the character and role of the federal government and the Canadian State as a whole:

     What does this grand "make-over" consist of?  Here's the short list:

* Increasing the repressive role of the state - the military, the police, the courts and prison system, etc., while gutting its redistributive functions - things like healthcare, public education, pension programs, social assistance, and so on - turning these services over to the "private sector" so that these too can be exploited for profit;

* Removing regulatory "constraints" on business  things like environmental standards, labour codes, minimum wage structures, and workers' rights to organize and to strike - in the name of "flexibility" and "competitiveness"; and

* accelerating and ultimately completing the sell-out of Canadian sovereignty - and especially sovereign control over energy, water and other natural resources - and imposing in its place a "North American Union" under firm U.S. imperialist control.

     That in a nutshell is the real agenda of Canadian and international finance capital, the agenda most clearly and aggressively advanced by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. And every day, every week, and every month that the Tories remain in power, more and more of that agenda is being implemented before our very eyes.

     That is why a concerted and coordinated campaign by labour and the people's movements to defeat the Harper big business agenda is so urgently needed today. Indeed, such a coordinated fightback has been left wanting for some time now.

     As we said in our May Day message last year: "We need to put the Harper agenda on the defensive, to force the Tories to retreat wherever we can, and in the process create divisions and disarray in their ranks. That is the only way to ensure that the Conservatives are crushed in the next election, whenever it comes. No one should underestimate the damage this [government] can and will impose (in fact is already imposing) on the rights of workers, women, youth, the elderly, on Aboriginal peoples and national minorities, if they are allowed to implement their agenda largely unhindered."

     The resistance movement has grown over the past year, but several opportunities have been missed due to the failure of the opposition parties - especially the NDP - to launch any significant political fight inside Parliament, and the passivity of the leadership of the trade union movement to mobilize any real fightback outside of Parliament.

     Still, the Harper forces are increasingly exposed and vulnerable on a number of fronts - on the issue of peace, on the environment, on social equity and social justice issues, on "deep integration" with the U.S., and on democratic rights.

     The stark choice before all of the people's movements and forces is whether to continue to "lay on the ropes", absorbing blow after blow of this brutal offensive, every one of which makes the popular forces weaker and more divided, and the enemy stronger and more emboldened, or whether we can move decisively onto the counter-offensive.

     This May Day let us resolve to do the latter - to build the fightback against the Conservative/big business agenda, to defeat this government and to drive the Tories from office!

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

PV Ontario Bureau

Ontario will hold a referendum a new voting system when voters go to the polls in the October 10 provincial election.

     The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is recommending a switch from the first-past-the-post electoral system to the much more democratic Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, a form of proportional representation (PR) already in use in Germany and New Zealand.

     If adopted, the new system will give electors two votes - one to elect a local Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP), and the other to elect MPPs from a list provided by the political party of their choice. The number of seats in the Legislature will increase from the current 103 to 129 - about the size it was before the Harris Tories axed 25% of the seats in the 1990s.

     Ninety MPPs will be elected in local ridings, while the remaining 39 will be elected provincially by list. Parties which do not elect enough MPPs in local ridings proportional to their popular vote, will elect MPPs from the list of candidates they advance prior to the vote.

     The MMP system will ensure that the distribution of seats more closely reflects voter support, ending more than a century of "majority government" by parties which often garner less a third of the popular vote.

     Fair Vote Canada has published a short pamphlet, Dubious Democracy, which explodes the myth of "fair elections" by comparing vote results with the profoundly unequal distribution of seats in election after election through the 20th century.

     By comparison, MMP is a big leap forward, say supporters such as Fair Vote Ontario, the OFL, CLC, NDP, Greens, the Communist Party of Canada, and the CPC (Ontario), which will campaign for MMP, working with labour and Fair Vote in their campaigns as well.

     "This is an important fight for democracy, for working people to have a larger and more effective say in the political direction of this province," said Ontario Communist Party leader Liz Rowley.    "This will wedge the door open for progressive working class voices and parties to be represented in the Legislature. It won't end the struggle, but it will kick-start a new level of more effective, more political struggle for a People's Agenda, for policies (and political coalitions) that address peoples' needs and attack corporate greed."

     The same cannot be said for the governing Liberals, who will be "neutral" in the campaign, according to Premier Dalton McGuinty. With Tory support, the Liberals passed legislation requiring the referendum on MMP to pass by a 60% majority province-wide, and by a majority of more than 50% in 50% of (103) existing ridings.

     Tory leader John Tory doesn't include MMP in his list of policies supporting "hard-working" Ontarians. Representatives of his party advanced the idea of putting forward a blank list which they would fill in after the vote. Told the new election laws would require parties to name their candidates in advance, the Tories are not supporting MMP.

     There is a spanner in the MMP proposal. The Assembly has built in a threshold prohibiting parties which receive less than 3% of the popular vote from having their votes count towards seats. This means that only the Greens will likely be able to cross the threshold, and could fall below it. This could also happen to the NDP, who find themselves increasingly in competition with the Greens for votes.

     "The threshold will help the neo-liberal parties by forcing the progressive parties and their supporters to attack and compete with one another," said Rowley. "What we need instead is to build bridges and to find the ways to cooperate to increase the political and parliamentary space for all the parties with progressive policies, for labour and the democratic forces in and out of the Legislature. While we're fighting for MMP in the referendum, we're also going to fight to eliminate the 3% threshold which is aimed to keep politics in the hands of the Big Business parties."

     Fair Vote Ontario is launching the "Yes!" campaign across the province, engaging citizens one on one, and through their unions and public organizations. This broad-based, non-partisan campaign will need the active support of working people and democrats to win. With the 60% and 50% thresholds to become law, the labour and democratic movements must not only support the campaign, but drive it with political leadership and organizational and financial support all the way to victory.

     A loss in Ontario will set the struggle for electoral reform back a decade or more. Victory will put proportional representation and democratic electoral reform on the front burner of the next Parliament of Canada.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Commentary by Sam Hammond, Hamilton

Sometimes when you watch working people being mauled, degraded and blamed for everything from bad luck to bad weather, you have to ask yourself: when is enough enough?

     Well, the owners of Hamilton Specialty Bar got a fleeting sample on May 4. These offshore vulture capitalists, bottom feeders who took possession of the old Slaters Steel plant in Hamilton, hung a sign over the door announcing "A New Beginning." They promptly began chiselling wages and working conditions, only to get bitten in the ankle by the members of Local 4752, United Steelworkers. These 320 workers have accommodated more than trivial concessions over the last three years but guess what - the beast wants more.

     The plant is scheduled to close on May 29th, but the company decided to cut retiree benefits, stop vacation payments, and other nice little goodies just to get the party started early.

     On May 4th the local president, Bill Baker, in a carefully planned move initiated a plant occupation/sit?in that lasted several hours. There were close to a hundred supporters outside, including Ontario Federation of Labour President Wayne Samuelson and Steelworkers Ontario Director Wayne Fraser.

     The sit-in ended when the Union was able to negotiate retiree benefits, vacation pay and unpaid wages until May 29th when the plant closes. After that?

     Meantime the last producer of stainless steel in Canada is going, going, gone. Liberal Premier McGuinty was in Hamilton that day but refused an invitation to talk with the workers. Tory Party leader John Tory wasn't in Hamilton, but showed his concern by announcing that when he is elected he will punish people who break the law with illegal occupations. He coupled this attack by including the Six Nations and the Steelworkers in the same threat. Good company brothers and sisters.

     The departure of our last stainless steel producer apparently is of no interest to McGuinty or Tory. Free Trade, neo-liberal agenda, de-industrialism....  Perhaps our brothers and sisters in the third world should get ready for the inclusion of a rather large land mass with a moderate population.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Sean Burton

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is abuzz following the presentation of the provincial budget in St. John's on April 27. Local media characterized the budget as containing "unprecedented tax cuts" as well as "increased social spending and new initiatives to stimulate and diversify the economy". Half of spending went towards health and education, and the budget projects a surplus, something rarely seen in Newfoundland.

     Of course, Newfoundland still has the largest debt per capita of all Canadian provinces, currently at $11.5 billion. There is also the fact that a provincial election is set for October, so one cannot but wonder how much of this budget is devoted to buying the vote.

     Provincial Progressive Conservative leader Danny Williams has created a "tough-guy" image for himself and his government over the past few years by frequently challenging Ottawa, with the apparent aim to promote Newfoundland's national identity and culture.

     Finance minister Tom Marshall claimed that his budget "reflects the government's vision of a prosperous, self-reliant province." Yet the government essentially did nothing when Abitibi Consolidated closed one its mills in the town of Stephenville in 2005, and many Newfoundlanders are leaving for more lucrative jobs in places such as Alberta.

     What, then, does this budget promise for the average worker in Newfoundland? The tax cuts, amounting to about 20%, only really matter to wealthier Newfoundlanders. According to Marshall, this means an increase in real personal income of 1-2%. Of course, 1-2% is a different number depending on who you talk to. Only those with substantially high incomes ($100,000) will really benefit.

     The budget does include a laughable minimum wage increase, from the current wage of $7/hour to $8/hour over the next 12 months. You would think that with such a "generous" budget, the government could spare a little more.

     The budget also intends to do more to attract businesses to Newfoundland, something that Williams has claimed to be doing since he was elected. Having lived in Newfoundland for my entire life, I have witnessed the decline of my hometown of Corner Brook. The city mayor called this budget a "Corner Brook budget" for its apparent emphasis on the region. However, a new courthouse and an expanded university are merely cosmetic improvements, especially when one considers that most of the jobs are coming from low-wage box-store chains like Wal-Mart.

     But Williams remains popular, while the opposition Liberals are poorly organized and the local NDP seems to be on the way to political oblivion. And who can blame the people? There have been few political leaders in Newfoundland like Danny Williams that were willing to get confrontational with Ottawa and bring some success.

     On the surface, this budget looks good with its promises of school expansions, new court houses, and improved transportation. But the proof is in the pudding; what good is all that when the workers are no better off than before?

     Still, regardless of the budget's shortcomings, the Williams government will probably be around for quite a while.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Excerpts from the speech by Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan at this year's May Day rally in Edmonton:

Did you guys enjoy stopping traffic today? Well, there are a few other things we would get a lot of fun out of stopping, like the managers at the Palace Casino, and like those guys in the oil towers in Calgary who think they own our resources. And like a certain clan of Conservative politicians under that dome over there.

     When we gather at events like this, we have a certain tendency to make lists of grievances. Here in Alberta, there is no shortage of items to put on that list - labour laws that hold people down instead of bringing them up, one penny on the dollar oil royalties, a government that ignores the poverty in front of it, a federal government that backs up its American partners by sending our soldiers to make war in other parts of the world.

     These are things we should be ashamed of. But instead of making lists of grievances today, I want to turn to a couple of words that apply more and more to progressives in this country and the labour movement in this province in particular. Words like victory, opportunity, and hope.

     When I look at what this progressive movement and this labour movement have done for themselves and working people in this province, I can't help but be excited and optimistic. More than a year ago, a former premier said that it was going to be his lasting legacy to introduce private health care in this province. He said he wouldn't retire until he had won the Third Way. You know what? Ralph Klein was a man who retired in frustration because of you!

     It's important to remember that the victory against the third way was a public victory, a people's victory. But in large measure it was a labour movement victory, because it was labour union money and people and energy and dynamism that won that fight.

     And that wasn't the only fight that we have been winning in this province over the last year or two. We've won victories with the Labour Relations Board. We won important victories at the bargaining table and in the political arena. We're winning victories on a daily basis.

     On May Day we look back on reasons to celebrate our victories, but we also look forward to the challenges and the victories yet to come. At times like this, times of economic growth when the business pages are talking about investment and growth and booming economies, working people make gains at the bargaining table, in the political arena and in our community.

     So I'm hopeful we've made strides in the right direction. We've proved that working people and the unions that represent them can make a difference even in the most difficult of places like Alberta. We can set the agenda.

     When I look forward, I look at what we've accomplished and at who we are. We are those people walking on the Palace Casino line who have shown us what it means to be a union member. They face a tough employer who hoped they would go away. But they sent a message that they are not going away. Today we're sending a message that we are not going away, that we are going to make change in this province.

     Instead of making lists of grievances, we should be making lists of things to do and victories to win. We will make a list that includes fair labour laws, fair royalties, an oil sands economy that works for people, not for oil companies. These are the priorities of working people and the labour movement. It's on days like this that we focus our energies and make promises to ourselves and our brothers and sisters to go forward. So let's celebrate, and and let's fight and make change together. Happy May Day!

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

People's Voice Editorial, May 16-31, 2007

Many Canadians will heave a sigh of relief if a spring federal election - which would have been the third such campaign in 36 months - is not in the cards. But while listening to politicians is not the most pleasant way to enjoy the month of June, the consequences of leaving the Harper Conservatives in office are deadly.

     The Tories remain mired at about 35% in the polls - slightly less than they received in January 2006. Why can't Harper and his gang can't get any traction? Because their far right policies are deeply at odds with the views of a large majority of Canadians. Simply put, they never had a real mandate from the voters, and they have no right to stay in office a single day longer.

     Most Canadians had hoped that the other Parliamentary parties would act as an effective check on Stephen Harper's cabinet. But while the most extremist Conservative positions have occasionally been restrained, their main agenda is largely unchallenged. There is no deadline to end the imperialist mission in Afghanistan, and military spending is going through the roof. Political, military and economic integration with George Bush's USA is moving ahead with the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership" - the pact to destroy what's left of Canadian sovereignty. The social redistribution functions of the federal state, won by decades of working class and democratic struggles, are being eliminated. The Canadian Wheat Board is being brutally gutted. The gap between rich and poor is widening rapidly.

     Waiting until the new "fixed date" election of October 2009 is not acceptable. We urge the labour and people's movements to demand that the opposition parties unite to defeat the Harper Conservatives and force a new election - the sooner the better!

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

People's Voice Editorial, May 16-31, 2007

The latest revelations about the 1985 Air India bombing confirm that the racist nature of the Canadian state was a critical factor in the failure to prevent this tragic terrorist crime. But instead of more sweeping reductions of civil liberties, this case drives home the point that the RCMP, CSIS and other police forces cannot be trusted to defend the lives and safety of the peoples of Canada.

     There were repeated warnings that a plane would be bombed by Sikh separatist groups, including James Bartleman's recent testimony that he gave seniors RCMP officers a detailed threat analysis days before the fatal flight. But the case was hampered by police incompetence, and by the RCMP's complete lack of translators, nearly a century after the first Punjabi immigrants arrived in Canada. The RCMP was more concerned about its Stetson-wearing image than about protecting lives. Eloquent proof of such state racism was provided by Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney, who called the Indian government to express condolences, even though most of the 329 victims were Canadian citizens.

     None of this surprises real students of history. Formed to strong-arm the theft of aboriginal lands, the RCMP went on to help the state crush strikes and to spy on the Communist Party and other left groups. When the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service was created, its main source of personnel was the discredited RCMP spy agency.

     The Harper Tories recently tried to extend draconian provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, including the preventive arrest clause which allows the arrest and detention of suspects without warrant. They were backed by Liberal Bob Rae (the former NDP premier of Ontario), who claimed that such powers were necessary to conduct the Air India probe. Fortunately, the extension was defeated in the House of Commons, no thanks to politicians who are eager to sacrifice democratic rights and civil liberties. We urge that the cover-up of the Air India debacle be fully exposed, and that the politicians and police responsible for bungling this case be held accountable.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Jason Mann

A study by Statistics Canada into "alternative consumer credit markets" has revealed that some "payday loan" companies are charging up to 1300% interest rates.

     To put that into perspective: if I lent you a nickel at a 1300% interest rate, in ten years you would owe me 14 billion dollars. Quite a tidy profit.

     Conditions like these are imposed each year on 350,000 families who need short term credit to pay their bills. Except payday loan companies aren't lending out five cents at a time, they are lending out millions.

     About 10% of people under 25 are forced into these predatory loans, with the lowest income quintile making up 50% of all borrowing.

     The Statistics Canada survey showed 57% of payday loan companies in Toronto were charging interest rates of more than 1000% on a 7 day loan of $100. And that's if you pay them back on time!

     Predatory lending throws people into a debt trap they can never escape. Section 347 of Canada's Criminal Code specifies 5 years imprisonment for anyone charging higher than 60% interest rates, but this is what companies like Cash Money, Money Mart, The Cash Store, and Instaloans do every day.

     The Harper government felt compelled to rectify this situation last year, and they did, by exempting payday lenders from section 347 of the criminal code.

     The Harper Tories claim that Section 347 exists to combat organized criminals and underground loan sharks by capping interest rates at 60%. If lending at a 60% interest rate describes the activities of organized crime, how do we describe the activity of payday loan companies who lend at rates of up to 1300%?

     The real difference between the payday loan sharks and organized crime is that criminals have to pay their own thugs to collect, whereas the Money Marts rely on police and the justice system to do their collection. That's an unfair state subsidy if I ever saw one.

     Don't get me wrong, the Canadian Payday Loan Association supports Section 347 of the Criminal Code. No wonder they're concerned with the extortion rates charged for loans by organized crime. To them, that's their competition!

     See http://www.canada.acorn.org for information about their campaign against predatory lenders.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Branches of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association took part in demonstrations at the U.S. Consulates in Toronto and Vancouver on May 11, to protest that government's refusal to act against the notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Elizabeth Hill, President of CCFA-Toronto, issued the following Statement for the occasion:

     The Canadian?Cuban Friendship Association Toronto (CCFA Toronto) condemns United States government's actions to protect the notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and prevent justice from being done.
    
Carriles was released from a Texas prison on April 19 pending a May 11 trial on immigration charges. A self-confessed terrorist, Carriles admitted to the New York Times he was behind a campaign of bombings in the 1990s of hotels and other tourist locations in Cuba. A Montreal resident, Fabio Di Celmo, was killed in one of these bombings in 1996.

     Carriles was also behind the 1976 bombing of the Cuban Airlines flight from Barbados that tragically killed all 73 people on board, including Cuba's entire national youth fencing team.  These are terrorist acts that were promulgated with the specific objective of killing as many people as possible.

     Luis Posada Carriles was convicted in the conspiracy to bomb a University of Panama event where Cuban President Fidel Castro was scheduled to speak to thousands of students.  He was later pardoned by the outgoing President of Panama.  Afterwards, that president was allowed to move to the US to live.

     US President George W. Bush stated that anyone who shields a terrorist is also a terrorist.  Yet the US Government has refused to act on a legal extradition petition from Venezuela where Carriles was awaiting sentencing for the Cuban plane bombing before he escaped, and also refused to send him to Cuba to face terrorist and murder charges.

     Incredibly the United States has simply charged Carriles with a violation of U.S. immigration law.  Meanwhile hundreds of people, not charged with any offence much less tried, denied contact with family and consul, are imprisoned for years in US occupied Guantanomo Bay in Cuba.

     The CCFA Toronto is very aware of the five anti-terrorist Cuban heroes imprisoned in the United States and condemns the US government for protecting a terrorist and at the same time imprisoning five innocent people who were ringing the alarm bells to prevent future terrorist acts against Cuba from Miami.

     People who value democracy and justice must condemn the heinous acts of Luis Posada Carriles as well as the intentions of the President of the United States to protect this terrorist.

     Thousands of international artists and intellectuals have signed a statement to condemn the impunity granted to Carriles by those who helped mentor him.  As well, the non-aligned movement has also adopted a statement supporting the legal extradition of Carriles to Venezuela.

     We call upon the Canadian government to stand up for justice and international law and demand that the U.S. government treat Luis Posada Carriles as the terrorist he is, not only for justice for our Montreal victim, Fabio Di Celmo, but for justice against a convicted, self-proclaimed terrorist.

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Cuban President Fidel Castro's reflections on the topic of bio-fuels and the struggle against hunger and poverty around the world, circulated by Cuban News Agency.

I hold nothing against Brazil, even though to more than a few Brazilians continuously bombarded with the most diverse arguments, which can be confusing even for people who have traditionally been friendly to Cuba, we might sound callous and careless about hurting that country's net income of hard currency. However, for me to keep silent would be to opt between the idea of a world tragedy and a presumed benefit for the people of that great nation.

     I do not blame Lula and the Brazilians for the objective laws which have governed the history of our species. Only seven thousand years have passed since the human being has left his tangible mark on what has come to be a civilization immensely rich in culture and technical knowledge. Advances have not been achieved at the same time or in the same geographical latitudes. It can be said that due to the apparent enormity of our planet, quite often the existence of one or another civilization was unknown. Never in thousands of years had the human being lived in cities with twenty million inhabitants such as Sao Paulo or Mexico City, or in urban communities such as Paris, Madrid, Berlin and others who see trains speeding by on rails and air cushions, at speeds of more than 250 miles an hour.

     At the time of Christopher Columbus, barely 500 years ago, some of these cities did not exist or they had populations that did not exceed several tens of thousands. Nobody used one single kilowatt to light their home. Possibly, the population of the world then was not more than 500 million. We know that in 1830, world population reached the first billion mark, 130 years later it multiplied by three, and 46 years later the total number of inhabitants on the planet had grown to 6.5 billion; the immense majority of these were poor, having to share their food with domestic animals and from now on with biofuels.

     Humanity did not then have all the advances in computers and means of communication that we have today, even though the first atomic bombs had already been detonated over two large human communities, in a brutal act of terrorism against a defenseless civilian population, for reasons that were strictly political.

     Today, the world has tens of thousands of nuclear bombs that are fifty times as powerful, with carriers that are several times faster than the speed of sound and having absolute precision; our sophisticated species could destroy itself with them. At the end of World War II, fought by the peoples against fascism, a new power emerged that took over the world and imposed the absolutist and cruel order under which we live today.

     Before Bush's trip to Brazil, the leader of the empire decided that corn and other foodstuffs would be suitable raw material for the production of biofuels. For his part, Lula stated that Brazil could supply as much biofuel as necessary from sugar cane; he saw in this formula a possibility for the future of the Third World, and the only problem left to solve would be to improve the living conditions of the sugarcane workers. He was well aware - and he said it - that the United States should in turn lift the custom tariffs and the subsidies affecting ethanol exports to that country.

     Bush replied that custom tariffs and subsidies to the growers were untouchable in a country such as the United States, which is the first world producer of ethanol from corn.

     The large American transnationals, which produce this biofuel investing tens of billion dollars at an accelerated pace, had demanded from the imperial leader the distribution in the American market of no less than 35 billion gallons of this fuel every year. The combination of protective tariffs and real subsidies would raise that figure to almost 100 billion dollars each year.

     Insatiable in its demand, the empire had flung into the world the slogan of producing biofuels in order to liberate the United States, the world's supreme energy consumer, from all external dependency on hydrocarbons.

     History shows that sugar as a single crop was closely associated with the enslaving of Africans, forcibly uprooted from their natural communities, and brought to Cuba, Haiti and other Caribbean islands. In Brazil, the exact same thing happened in the growing of sugar cane.

     Today, in that country, almost 80% of sugar cane is cut by hand. Sources and studies made by Brazilian researchers affirm that a sugarcane cutter, a piece-work labourer, must produce no less than twelve tons in order to meet basic needs. This worker needs to perform 36,630 flexing movements with his legs, make small trips 800 times carrying 15 kilos of cane in his arms and walk 8,800 meters in his chores. He loses an average of 8 liters of water every day. Only by burning cane can this productivity per man be achieved. Cane cut by hand or by machines is usually burned to protect people from nasty bites and especially to increase productivity. Even though the established norm for a working day is from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, this type of piece-work cane cutting tends to go on for a 12 hour working day. The temperature will at times rise to 45 degrees centigrade by noon.

     I have cut cane myself more than once as a moral duty, as have many other comrade leaders of the country. I remember August of 1969. I chose a place close to the capital. I moved there very early every day. It was not burned cane but green cane, an early variety and high in agricultural and industrial yield. I would cut for four hours non-stop. Somebody else would be sharpening the machete. I consistently produced a minimum of 3.4 tons per day. Then I would shower, calmly have some lunch and take a break in a place nearby. I earned several coupons in the famous harvest of 1970. I had just turned 44 then. The rest of the time, until bedtime, I worked at my revolutionary duties. I stopped my personal efforts after I wounded my left foot. The sharpened machete had sliced through my protective boot. The national goal was 10 million tons of sugar and approximately 4 million tons of molasses as by-product. We never reached that goal, although we came close.

     The USSR had not disappeared; that seemed impossible. The Special Period, which took us to a struggle for survival and to economic inequalities with their inherent elements of corruption, had not yet begun. Imperialism believed that the time had come to finish off the Revolution. It is also fair to recognize that during years of bonanza we wasted resources and our idealism ran high along with the dreams accompanying our heroic process.

     The great agricultural yields of the United States were achieved by rotating the gramineae (corn, wheat, oats, millet and other similar grains) with the legumes (soy, alfalfa, beans, etc.). These contribute nitrogen and organic material to the soil. The corn crop yield in the United States in 2005, according to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) data was 9.3 tons per hectare.

     In Brazil they only obtain 3 tons of this same grain in the same area. The total production registered by this sister nation that year was 34.6 million tons, consumed internally as food. It cannot contribute corn to the world market.

     The prices for this grain, the staple diet in numerous countries of the region, have almost doubled. What will happen when hundreds of millions of tons of corn are redirected towards the production of biofuel? And I rather not mention the amounts of wheat, millet, oats, barley, sorghum and other cereals that industrialized countries will use as a source of fuel for its engines.

     Add to this that it is very difficult for Brazil to rotate corn and legumes. Of the Brazilian states traditionally producing corn, eight are responsible for ninety percent of production: Parana, Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Goias, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso do Sul. On the other hand, 60% of sugar cane production, a grain that cannot be rotated with other crops, takes place in four states: Sao Paulo, Parana, Pernambuco and Alagoas.

     The engines of tractors, harvesters and the heavy machinery required to mechanize the harvest would use growing amounts of hydrocarbons. The increase of mechanization would not help in the prevention of global warming, something which has been proven by experts who have measured annual temperatures for the last 150 years.

     Brazil does produce an excellent food that is especially rich in protein: soy, 50,115,000 tons. It consumes almost 23 million tons and exports 27,300,000 tons. Is it perhaps that a large part of this soy will be converted to biofuel?

     As it is, the producers of beef cattle are beginning to complain that grazing land is being transformed into sugarcane fields.

     The former Agriculture Minister of Brazil, Roberto Rodrigues, an important advocate for the current government position - and today a co-president of the Inter American Ethanol Commission created in 2006 following an agreement with the state of Florida and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) to promote the use of biofuel on the American continent - declared that the program to mechanize the sugarcane harvest does not create more jobs, but on the contrary it would produce a surplus of non-qualified manpower.

     We know that the poorest workers from various states are the ones who gravitate towards cane cutting out of necessity. Sometimes, they must spend many months away from their families. That is what happened in Cuba until the triumph of the Revolution, when the cutting and hauling of sugarcane was done by hand, and mechanized cultivation or transportation hardly existed. With the demise of the brutal system forced on our society the cane-cutters, massively taught to read and write, abandoned their wanderings in a few years and it became necessary to replace them with hundreds of thousands of voluntary workers.

     Add to this the latest report by the United Nations about climate change, affirming what would happen in South America with the water from the glaciers and the Amazon water basin as the temperature of the atmosphere continue to rise.

     Nothing could prevent American and European capital from funding the production of biofuels. They could even send the funds as gifts to Brazil and Latin America. The United States, Europe and the other industrialized countries would save more than 140 billion dollars each year, without having to worry about the consequences for the climate and the hunger which would affect the countries of the Third World in the first place. They would always be left with enough money for biofuels and to acquire the little food available on the world market at any price.

     It is imperative to immediately have an energy revolution that consists not only in replacing all the incandescent light bulbs, but also in massively recycling all domestic, commercial, industrial, transport and socially used electric appliances that require two and three times more energy with their previous technologies.

     It hurts to think that 10 billion tons of fossil fuel is consumed every year. This means that each year we waste what it took nature a million years to create. National industries are faced with enormous challenges, including the reduction of unemployment. Thus we could gain a bit of time.

     Another risk of a different nature facing the world is an economic recession in the United States. In the past few days, the dollar has broken records at losing value. On the other hand, every country has most of its reserves in convertible currencies precisely in this paper currency and in American bonds.

     Tomorrow, May Day is a good day to bring these reflections to the workers and to all the poor of the world. At the same time we should protest against something incredible and humiliating that has just occurred: the liberation of a terrorist monster, exactly when we are celebrating the 46th Anniversary of the Revolutionary Victory at the Bay of Pigs.

     Prison for the assassin! Freedom for the Five Cuban Heroes!

     - Fidel Castro Ruz, April 30, 2007

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(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

PV Vancouver Bureau

International Workers' Day was celebrated on May 1 around the world with demonstrations and rallies by millions of people.

     May Day celebrations in socialist Cuba became a massive protest against U.S.-backed terrorism. Participants in million-strong rally in Havana denounced the US double standard, declaring itself against terrorism but releasing confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, with 73 passengers onboard. While Fidel Castro did not attend the rally, marchers and over 1,600 foreign guests were cheered by the release of the Cuban president's latest article.

     Police arrested about 600 protesters in the Turkish capital of Istanbul. May 1 was the 30th anniversary of a deadly attack on a 1977 rally in Taksim Square, where gunmen opened fire on tens of thousands of demonstrators, sparking a stampede that left 34 dead. This year, union leaders were allowed to lay wreaths at the square, but riot police used tear gas and water cannons to bar thousands of protesters from the site. The police violence followed an April 28 rally by over a million people to defend the secular nature of the Turkish state against efforts to impose Islamic religious policies.

     In Tehran, protesters seeking better pay and the resignation of the Labour Minister clashed with police after a rally at a sports stadium, where thousands had protested against the Iranian government's economic policies.

     Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez chose May Day to strip the world's biggest multinational oil companies of operational control over massive Orinoco Belt crude oil projects, a vital move in his nationalization drive. "The wheel has turned full circle," he told a rally in Caracas, hailing the takeovers as the nation reclaiming its sovereignty. "Long live the workers."

     In Italy, half a million people gathered in Rome for an annual holiday rock concert, and a further 100,000 waved red flags at a rally in the northern city of Turin.

     France was the site of an estimated 250 demonstrations around the country, focused on the struggle to defeat right-wing candidate Nikolas Sarkozy in the May 6 presidential run-off election, and on the erosion of workers' buying power.

     About 100,000 people packed the square in front of city hall for a huge May Day rally in Vienna, Austria.

     May First is a public holiday in Greece, where thousands of workers rallied in Athens and other cities against the conservative government's handling of a recent pension scandal. Employment Minister Savvas Tsitouridis resigned on April 28 following the discovery that a state pension fund overpaid US$6.5 million on state bonds. Demands included restitution of lost pension monies and a 35-hour work week. Major roads in Athens were closed to traffic, and strikers disrupted public transport with rolling stoppages on bus, trolley and metro services. State-run Olympic Airlines was forced to cancel dozens of domestic and international flights, while national and local train services were also disrupted.

     Thousands of workers marched in more than a dozen Indonesian cities on May Day, demanding higher wages and a review of discriminatory labour laws. In the capital Jakarta, some 18,000 police were deployed to monitor thousands of protesters employed at industrial estates. Riot police equipped with batons and water cannons stood guard outside the Presidential Palace, which had barbed wire strung across its main gates. Another 2,000 workers staged a noisy rally outside the Jakarta governor's office, demanding better work conditions, an end to cheap labour and outsourcing practices, a review of labour laws which favour management, and the declaration of May 1 as a national holiday. Thousands of workers hit the streets in provincial capitals across Java, including Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya.

     In Germany, half a million people joined rallies which condemned Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party for resisting efforts to introduce a minimum wage. "Everyone has to profit from the country's economic upturn - and not just the rich and high-wage earners," said union leader Michael Sommer.

     An estimated 2 million people took part in May Day rallies in Russia, including 250,000 in the Far East and 300,000 in Siberia, reported the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. Twenty-five thousand people marched from the Belarussky railroad terminal to Tverskaya Square in Moscow, and 12,000 people demonstrated in St. Petersburg. The unions have helped to collect ten million signatures throughout Russia on appeals for protection of people's rights and raising minimum salaries and pensions. Strikes will be considered if the appeals are disregarded by the Putin government.

     At Bangalor Square in the Belorussian capital city of Minsk, the Communist and Gromada Social-Democratic parties and trade union groups demanded an end to the contract system of employment, a higher minimum wage and pensions that cover minimum costs of living.

     Japan's largest labour federation, Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation) staged rallies across the country on Saturday, April 28, urging the government to tackle wealth inequalities in the world's second-largest economy. Organisers said 42,000 people gathered at Rengo's central rally in Tokyo, where its president Tsuyoshi Takagi called on the government to narrow the gap between rich and poor. "Although the economic recovery is said to be continuing, small-and-medium-sized companies and rural areas are lagging behind in their recovery," Takagi told the rally.

     A four-day joint festival of South and North Korean workers in celebration of May Day kicked off in Changwon, South Korea on April 29. The festival, first held in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2004, is aimed at implementing commitments by the two Koreas to boost economic cooperation as well as social and cultural exchanges. Workers' representatives from North Korea took part in meetings, friendly football matches, a visit to a national cemetery and a May Day celebration during their four day stay in the South.

     There were no May Day rallies in Bangladesh, where protests are banned under a state of emergency. The army-backed interim government urged labour groups to "free themselves from the yoke of political parties."

     In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak's annual May 1 speech was delivered against a backdrop of increasing industrial sit-ins and strikes. Workers at the public-owned Egyptian Company for Dairy Products staged a May Day sit-in to protest plans to merge the company with two others, part of a strategy to reduce benefits and lay off more workers. Two hundred workers at the Arab Sand-Brick Company continued their strike against plans to liquidate the firm, joined by Mansoura-Spain workers, whose company may also face closure. The situation in Egypt is complicated by anger over the appointment of union officials considered friendly to the state security service and company management. In the most recent trade union elections many candidates were barred from standing.

     About 5,000 workers from state-owned and private companies, representing the three Angolan main trade unions - Unta-Confederacao Sindical, CG-Sila and Forca Sindical - turned out in Luanda to celebrate May 1. Under the motto "Workers forward for better working conditions and salaries", the rally began with a march to Independence Square (formerly May 1 Square). A statement read out at the event emphasised the unions' commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS, support for the voters registration process, reconstruction of socio?economic infrastructures, and higher salaries.

     About 2,500 people took part in May 1 actions of Georgian trade unions in Tbilisi. They marched down Rustaveli Avenue for a rally at the parliament building to demand better living and working conditions, lower unemployment, and job creation. Trade unions also called for amendments to anti-worker provisions of the Labor Code adopted last year. May 1 is a working day in Georgia.

     In a move unprecedented since the restoration of capitalism in Hungary sixteen years ago, four of the country's largest trade unions sharply criticised the Socialist-led government during May Day events. Issuing a manifesto titled "Thus far and no further," the union confederation Mszosz, the Autonomous Trade Unions Alliance, the Trade Unions Forum for Co-operation and the Professionals Union stressed that workers are no longer prepared to tolerate more burdens, that they oppose all new rises in tax and social insurance contributions, as well as the introduction of private health insurance companies. Imre Palkovics, head of the National Alliance of Workers Councils, told a May Day demonstration held with the Liga Unions that a change of regime is needed. Palkovics demanded that workers' pay be brought in line with the EU, saying Hungarian wages are only 27% of the EU average.

The largest U.S. May Day event was in Chicago, where 250,000 rallied for immigrant rights. Similar protests took place across the country. See page 10 for a report on the Chicago rally.

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